Change to a larger hard disk

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Scott

The existing hard disk of my notebook pc becomes low level and I would like
to change to a larger one. I am looking for guidance to accomplish this
task. Can someone provide the pointer to where such guidance locates.

Thanks,

Scott
 
Scott, I would try the manufacturer of the Notebook first. They
probably have Support, Knowledge Base and maybe a forum.
 
Scott said:
The existing hard disk of my notebook pc becomes low level and I
would like to change to a larger one. I am looking for guidance to
accomplish this task. Can someone provide the pointer to where
such guidance locates.
Click to expand...

Laptop manufacturer/user manual/FAQs on their web page, etc.

Essentially you need to be sure to get the right type of drive (and one the
BIOS of the laptop supports), you need to clone/image the old drive and then
you should be up and going.
 
Scott said:
The existing hard disk of my notebook pc becomes low level and I would
like to change to a larger one. I am looking for guidance to accomplish
this task. Can someone provide the pointer to where such guidance locates.

Thanks,

Scott
Click to expand...

To copy the old drive to the new drive, you need a way to connect
an additional drive.

One way to do this, is with USB. Your internal drive is some kind of
2.5" hard drive. Depending on vintage, it could be IDE ribbon cable
or SATA.

This device, for example, allows connecting a 2.5" IDE, a 3.5" IDE,
or a SATA drive. The output is a USB plug, that connects to the
computer. The product includes a power supply to operate the drive.
No power should be drawn from the USB. This one is $21.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812195005

Basically, that is a USB enclosure, without the enclosure. It contains
the adapter electronics and power source. And it allows a drive
to be temporarily connected while copying files.

If you had a desktop computer, you could save a few dollars, by
getting a 40 pin 3.5" to 44 pin 2.5" adapter plug, then plug the
laptop drive into a desktop ribbon cable. That is another way to
gain access to a disk.

Some disk drive makers, provide copying utilities.

Data Lifeguard Tools
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=701&sid=1&lang=en

Manual
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2779-001005.pdf

For other advice, you should give the make and model number of the
laptop. It could be, that there are other considerations when
doing the upgrade. (For example, you'd probably want to copy the
hidden partition on the old disk, as that has your backup copy of
Windows on it. I don't know if the Data Lifeguard can see that
partition or not. If the computer is from before 2003, the
BIOS may not support large disks.)

If the web.archive.org site starts working again, you could try to
download the old Seagate document, about the 137GB barrier. The
document is 398,893 bytes. Seagate appears to have removed this,
but this site should have an archived copy of the PDF.

http://web.archive.org/*/http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

If you replaced a 40GB with a 120GB, you'd have (almost) nothing to worry about.
(Again, if the computer is *really* old, there are other barriers at lower
capacity levels.) So sticking with something below 137GB, has its advantages.
I own a few disks bigger than that, but I'm always careful what OS I allow
to access them.

Paul
 
Paul said:
To copy the old drive to the new drive, you need a way to connect
an additional drive.

One way to do this, is with USB. Your internal drive is some kind of
2.5" hard drive. Depending on vintage, it could be IDE ribbon cable
or SATA.

This device, for example, allows connecting a 2.5" IDE, a 3.5" IDE,
or a SATA drive. The output is a USB plug, that connects to the
computer. The product includes a power supply to operate the drive.
No power should be drawn from the USB. This one is $21.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16812195005

Basically, that is a USB enclosure, without the enclosure. It contains
the adapter electronics and power source. And it allows a drive
to be temporarily connected while copying files.

If you had a desktop computer, you could save a few dollars, by
getting a 40 pin 3.5" to 44 pin 2.5" adapter plug, then plug the
laptop drive into a desktop ribbon cable. That is another way to
gain access to a disk.

Some disk drive makers, provide copying utilities.

Data Lifeguard Tools
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=701&sid=1&lang=en

Manual
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2779-001005.pdf

For other advice, you should give the make and model number of the
laptop. It could be, that there are other considerations when
doing the upgrade. (For example, you'd probably want to copy the
hidden partition on the old disk, as that has your backup copy of
Windows on it. I don't know if the Data Lifeguard can see that
partition or not. If the computer is from before 2003, the
BIOS may not support large disks.)

If the web.archive.org site starts working again, you could try to
download the old Seagate document, about the 137GB barrier. The
document is 398,893 bytes. Seagate appears to have removed this,
but this site should have an archived copy of the PDF.

http://web.archive.org/*/http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

If you replaced a 40GB with a 120GB, you'd have (almost) nothing to worry
about.
(Again, if the computer is *really* old, there are other barriers at lower
capacity levels.) So sticking with something below 137GB, has its
advantages.
I own a few disks bigger than that, but I'm always careful what OS I allow
to access them.

Paul
Click to expand...

Paul,

Many thanks for your detail info. The computer is about 4 yrs old and would
like to replace the existing 60 GB hdd with a 250 GB one if possible. Is
there any way to know if the computer can support upto 250 GB? The copying
utility is great and if it is suitable for all hard disks or their brand
only.

Regards,

Scott
 
Scott said:
Many thanks for your detail info. The computer is about 4 yrs old
and would like to replace the existing 60 GB hdd with a 250 GB one
if possible. Is there any way to know if the computer can support
upto 250 GB? The copying utility is great and if it is suitable
for all hard disks or their brand only.
Click to expand...

Laptop manufacturer/user manual/FAQs on their web page, etc.

Essentially you need to be sure to get the right type of drive (and one the
BIOS of the laptop supports), you need to clone/image the old drive and then
you should be up and going.
 
Rich Barry said:
Scott, I would try the manufacturer of the Notebook first. They
probably have Support, Knowledge Base and maybe a forum.
Click to expand...

Rich,

Thanks for your advice.

Scott
 
Shenan Stanley said:
Laptop manufacturer/user manual/FAQs on their web page, etc.

Essentially you need to be sure to get the right type of drive (and one
the BIOS of the laptop supports), you need to clone/image the old drive
and then you should be up and going.
Click to expand...

Shenan,

Will check it out! Thanks!

Scott
 
Scott said:
Paul,

Many thanks for your detail info. The computer is about 4 yrs old and
would like to replace the existing 60 GB hdd with a 250 GB one if
possible. Is there any way to know if the computer can support upto 250
GB? The copying utility is great and if it is suitable for all hard
disks or their brand only.

Regards,

Scott
Click to expand...

There is actually one web site, which will sell you a small utility to
check the level of support. But I have no idea how legitimate their
algorithm is. (If they're just checking BIOS dates for example, that
would suck.)

The transition point for 48 bit LBA (>137GB), is sometime in the first part
of 2003. At least, Asus motherboards claimed to all support 48 bit LBA after that
date. (Since the BIOS is written in large part, by Award/AMI/Phoenix, the support
stems from them, and not from Asus.) Since now it is 2009, and your
laptop is 4 years old, that would be 2005. So I don't see a reason for
concern there.

There is the capacity aspect of the new drive. But there is also the
power dissipation of the new drive. In some cases, people find that the
replacement drive runs hotter than the old one.

If the old drive supports SMART, you can use the temperature display on
this program, to view the hard drive operating temperature. (The temperature
display is in the upper center of the window.) The purpose of monitoring this,
is so you have a "baseline" for evaluating the condition of the new drive.
For example, use a program that visits a lot of the disk, as a means
to "heat up" the drive. You want both the idle temperature, and the
busy temperature, as a means to verify you're not "cooking" the new drive.
(There are no guarantees about this temperature monitoring capability,
the results might not bear any resemblance to the truth. But it is
worth a shot.)

(Version 2.55 is free)
http://www.hdtune.com/download.html

This one uses 2.5W peak, as an example. This is a 5400RPM IDE
drive. (Some spec pages, include startup current, which can
mean double the power for the first few seconds. That is only
an issue, for bus powered 2.5" USB enclosures. It is the seek
and read/write numbers, that if applied over an extended time,
would tend to heat up the drive.)

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=346&language=en

You can also check the mechanical dimensions of the drive in that table.
The thickness is what I'd be verifying. If you get the drive model
number of the existing drive (using HDTune, Everest, or some
other free utility), you may be able to look up the particulars
of the old drive, without removing it. (I'm mentioning this,
because for some computer hardware upgrades, dimensions are
an issue. So no matter what it is, I always ask the question,
"are the dimensions the same".)

Paul
 
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